A new colleague will soon begin work in a role which aims to build on the success of a series of pilot suicide prevention training sessions held among Partnership staff. 
The ‘workforce development facilitator: suicide prevention’ will lead staff suicide prevention work and support organisations across the West Yorkshire health and care staff and volunteer workforce.
It follows a series of sold-out suicide prevention training sessions offered to staff as a pilot project across the Partnership.
Co-designed by Dr Kerry Hinsby from the staff Mental Health Hub, Muqadsa Malik and Rachel Jubb from the System and Leadership Development team and Jess Parker, Suicide Prevention Programme Manager – the pilot sessions were all fully booked within one month and positively received.
A total of 120 people signed up from across organisations including local authorities, NHS trust, PCNs, universities to attend the sessions which aimed to raise awareness of the prevalence of suicide, equip colleagues with knowledge of how to help those at risk, and help in the development of a suicide prevention and postvention action plan.
The pilot was developed on the back of Jess and Kerry delivering more detailed suicide prevention workshops with NHS trusts themselves.
Feedback from those who attended the pilot sessions was overwhelmingly positive – with 100 per cent rating it as good, very good or excellent.
The new workforce development facilitator will inject impetus, working for a fixed term period of 20 months across multiple partners and sectors in the development and delivery of high quality and bespoke training packages and will support in the establishment and embedding of suicide prevention strategies and plans.